It will be appreciated that a wide variety of pillows are utilized by travelers on trains, buses, airplanes, and cars to permit the individual to sleep while traveling. Prior travel pillows have tended to be flawed in terms of either being bulky or requiring permanent attachment to the seat; or fit around the neck of the individual like a collar to provide a stationary support for the head.
Neck engaging pillows such as illustrated by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,129,705; 4,776,049; 4,738,488; 4,617,691; 4,345,347; 4,285,081; 2,522,120; 2,336,707; 941,043; and 673,372 and all have as their major thrust providing a stationary support for the head by providing a neck engaging yoke. It will be appreciated that the entire purpose of these devices is to provide a stationary support for the head and therefore prevent it from moving while at the same time supporting the individual's head so that the pillow does not slip off during sleep. In use these devices actually tend to immobilize the neck and the head which makes them uncomfortable and makes sleep difficult.
However, these types of devices are both uncomfortable and limit or do not allow the normal motion of the neck and head of a sleeping individual, in which the head moves from side to side or up and down as part of the natural sleep pattern. These devices are thus uncomfortable and awkward, often causing neck strain and resulting in the waking up of the individual as the head moves during the sleep pattern.
There is another class of devices for inducing or promoting sleep while traveling which are characterized by the clamping of the neck or head. Such devices are illustrated by U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,582,571; 2,856,366; 4,114,948; and 4,738,488. It will be appreciated that all of these devices tend to wake up the individual when the head moves during the sleep cycle due to the restriction of the head and neck. Further, as illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,205,611, this is a half clamp type structure in which the head can move in one direction but not in the other. Individuals utilizing this device may wake up either when the head moves into the stationary pillow or when the head moves in the opposite direction where there is no support. Finally, as illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,042,278 and 4,440,443, rather than providing a tight fit around the neck or head, they engage the head loosely in the sense that the lateral supports are widely spaced apart. These devices thus do not promote sleep because they permit too much head movement and are therefore ineffective to maintain the sleep cycle.
There does exist a class of support pillows such as illustrated by U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,046,205; 5,025,518; 4,768,246; and 3,848,281 which comprise apertured pillows that are adapted to fit the back of the head of an individual in which the head is positioned within the aperture. The problem with these types of devices is that when these apertured pillows are utilized as head supports, the back of the head of the individual contacts the seat back as the head projects through the aperture of the pillow. As a result, as the individual's head moves, the hair is grabbed by the seat back and the individual wakes up with the resulting tug on the hair. Another problem with such devices is that the hair of the individual may be messed up as the individual moves his head which is an annoyance factor.
The friction of the back of the individual's head contacting the seat back causes the individual to awaken for two reasons. First, the individual's head does not easily rotate within the aperture of the pillow. Secondly, the pillow does not readily move with respect to the seat back due to the frictional contact of the back of the head with the seat back itself.
In summary, the support devices described above are both cumbersome and tend to wake up the individual due to the inability of the support device to readily move against the seat back and due to the inability of the individual's head to move relative to the device. Also it should be noted that many of the above devices are utilized when the individual is in a supine or horizontal position and are not therefore readily suitable for seat back use.